WCDefenseCA

The internet seems obsessed with the pending reforms included in Senate Bill 863, which received yet another amendment (its sixth) just yesterday.  Coverage extends to all aspects of the bill, from the hired protestors outside of Senator Kevin de Leon’s office to speculation that Governor Brown is supporting the reform in exchange for some slack from the business community in getting Proposition 30 passed.

And the comments… oh the comments!  Every online article is loaded with comment after comment of pure venom, with claims ranging from “the reform bill will prevent attorneys from representing injured workers” to critiques of a subsection which will require the euthanasia of injured workers with a predicted treatment cost over $75.36 (I made that one up, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see a commenter make a claim to that effect).

Your humble blogger is inclined to take a more relaxed approach.  If these reforms become law, we can all review them and plan accordingly for the new claims that arise.  If the reforms do not become law, then all of this frustration and furious typing away our respective hopes and fears will be for nothing.

While the world focuses on the real life imitating a certain television series, your humble blogger has another story for you, small in its significance but of considerable utility in its duplication.

A small claims court Judge has ordered Michele Marquez, a (former?) Hacienda La Puente Unified School District child-development teacher, to pay $5,000 in restitution to the district.  Claiming an injury in September 2010, she was placed on disability leave but was discovered to be working another job by the school district’s investigator.

Bear in mind, dear readers, this occurred in May of 2012, but the internet is a large place, and your humble blogger has only discovered this occurrence now.

California Small Claims Court is available for claims under $5,000 for any entity (not a natural person).  And, any number of claims under $2,500 may be filed in a calendar year.  Perhaps this is a venue that should be considered by insurers and self-insured employers alike?

After all, temporary disability caps out at just over $1,000 per week, so each claim could possibly reflect each payment made through the applicant’s fraud.

Sometimes the local law enforcement is not interested in pursuing fraudster workers – they are occasionally focused on uninsured employers or, sometimes, violent crime (who would a thunk it?).  That doesn’t meant that an employer or insurer can’t attempt to recover their losses through other means.  (No, dear readers, this is not an invitation to hire thugs and inflict new impairments on your workers.  Let’s stay inside the law, shall we?)

Has anyone out there tried this crazy idea?  Has there been any luck enforcing 104 small-claims court judgments for every payment of temporary disability ever made?

In any case, WCDefenseCA sends out a big “Huzzah!” to Hacienda La Puente Unified School District in refusing to eat unreasonable costs in this case.  Employers and Insurers state-wide would do well to follow suit.